How to Find a Doctoral Topic

Would you like to do a doctorate, but you’re still looking for a doctoral topic? This is the most difficult step for many doctoral candidates. What is a good topic? How do I find out? And how do I know that this topic has not been dealt with yet?

We are happy to answer many of the questions you may have with regard to choosing the topic of your doctoral project. By the way: at HSBI, we don’t just assist you in finding your doctoral topic, but also with our useful, free offers for doctoral candidates.

Option 1: You have already come across your topic

Was there something during your studies that you were particularly enthusiastic about? An issue that you can’t get out of your head? Have you dealt with a specific issue in your master thesis and found that it could be studied in more detail?

As a rule, it’s convenient if your doctoral project is related to your studies or if it builds on the scientific work you have done for your final master’s project. Of course, it is also possible to do a doctorate outside your subject area. But if you are doing a cooperative doctorate, you will have to convince the partner university that admits you – usually a university with the right to award doctoral degrees (Universität) – of your project.

Option 2: You get your inspiration from us

From Augmented Reality interaction and artificial intelligence to planetary health or materials research – HSBI’s research activities are extremely varied and can be a great source for inspiration! The research profile of HSBI is oriented towards the global social challenges of the future, with a special focus on climate and energy, health and communication.

Take a look at our ongoing research projects in the faculties Design and Art, Engineering and Mathematics, Social Sciences, Bielefeld School of Business, Health or Minden Campus with its study programmes from the fields of architecture, civil engineering, computer science and engineering. You will also be able to find out the respective research fields’ current statuses.

• Ongoing research projects at HSBI
• Current job advertisements

What makes a good doctoral topic?

• One of the most important factors: Your doctoral topic should be relevant for science, research, industry and/or society. There is one great advantage to writing your dissertation at a university of applied sciences: thanks to the high degree of practical orientation, you can choose a topic from professional practice that is highly relevant to society.
• What’s equally important: You should be able to identify with your topic! After all, you will be working on it for several years. Plus, if you’re enthusiastic about your own topic, you will also be able to convince others – e.g. a potential doctoral supervisor or organisations that provide scholarships.
• Find the research gap! Your topic should not have been fully researched, your doctorate should thus contribute to advancement of knowledge. It takes some time and effort to find out the current state of research. But the effort you put into the literature review is worthwhile, as it will also give you insight into your topic’s relevance.
• Ideally, nobody else should be doing research on the same topic at the moment. Nevertheless, it is practically impossible to rule out that parallel research takes place. Not everyone likes to make public what they are working on at the moment. As your doctoral supervisor will have a large network in research and science, they will be able to advise you in this regard.
• You should clearly define the scope of your topic. In this, it’s decisive whether you are planning to write a monograph, i.e. a single work, or a compendium of articles that you write and publish in scientific journals.

Useful databases for finding your topic

You can search for dissertations and post-doctoral theses from your subject area in the catalogue of the German National Library (Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, DNB). This will give you a clearer picture of your own topic and the scientific research results already obtained. DNB hosts the largest national collection of online dissertations in Europe.

• DissOnline of DNB

Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog (Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog, KVK) is a meta search engine for several hundred million books, magazines and other media in library and publishing industry catalogues worldwide. It’s definitely worthwhile using KVK for the literature review ahead of your dissertation.

• Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog